I am not this weak. Not anymore. That was the past, the old me. The past. The past. The past. I’ll make it stop. I just need space. I need to think about my triggers. I need . . . space.
Chris murmurs something to Jacob that I can’t make out and then he falls into step with me as I enter the lobby. “Sara,” he says softly, willing me to look at him, and he is a powerful force, nearly impossible for me to resist.
But my need to hide my scattered emotions wins. This is not who he needs me to be. It’s not who I need me to be.
“Mr. Merit. Ms. McMillan.”
The greeting is delivered by an unfamiliar man in a suit and earpiece standing by the front desk. I assume he’s Jacob’s replacement.
I’m uncharacteristically unfriendly, walking on toward the elevator with barely a glance in his direction. Thankfully, Chris pauses to greet the man, giving me a chance to gain my composure. I continue on to the elevator and punch the call button. When the doors don’t open immediately I punch the button again, irritated at the way my hand shakes. Why can’t I be one of those people who hides what they feel? Someone who doesn’t shake and ramble? Someone who doesn’t—
The doors part and cut off my thoughts. I step inside the car and hit the hold button, my chance to pull myself together gone. Chris joins me inside, his fierce male energy shrinking the space, consuming me, and I swear I can no longer breathe. He steps toward me, crowding me with his big, impossibly perfect body.
He glances at the panel, punching in the code for our floor, wisps of longish blond hair teasing his cheek and jawline. Trying to dash an unexpected rush of desire, I lower my lashes before I cave in to touching him, and invite further inspection. I have no idea how I want to run from this man and kiss him in the same moment, but I know this is going to be the longest short elevator ride of my life.
His fingers curve around my waist, possessive and warm, sending darts of awareness all through my body. Flattening his palm on the small of my back, he molds me to him.
My hand flattens on his chest, in that spot over his heart that has come to feel like my spot. I don’t want to lose this, or us, or him.
“Talk to me, baby,” he prods gently, and oh, how those familiar words speak to me.
I want to tell him what I feel, but I know if I love him, I cannot. Not if I want to replace the whip. And I do. I want that for him, and for us. I love him too much for him to see Amber in me any more than he already fears that possibility. That would allow the whip to win.
Chris cups my cheeks, forcing my gaze to his, and the tenderness in his eyes could melt ice. “Talk to me,” he repeats, adding a soft command to the words.
“Not now.” It’s a plea from deep in my soul. “If you love me, not now.”
His green eyes narrow, sharpen. “If? Where did that word come from?”
“I’m sorry . . . I . . .”
“Sara—”
My fingers curl around his wrists. “I need . . . Chris, I need to think.”
“Think with me. Talk to me, Sara.”
“No.” It’s out before I can stop it, sharp edged like when I snapped at the table, sure to alert him to how wrong I am right now.
“No?”
“Chris.” I press on his chest. “You need to let me figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“I don’t know. I need—” The door dings open and I try to dart for it.
Instead of escape I end up over his shoulder, and he carries me into the apartment. I press my hands to my face, the blood running to my head making it harder to think than it already was, his hand on my ass making it nearly impossible. I can’t do this now. I don’t know how I’ll react. I don’t know who I’ll be.
He sets me on my feet at the edge of our bed, my back to him, and then hits the light, casting us in a dim, seductive glow. “Whatever this is,” he says, pulling my coat down my arms, and holding it there, trapping my wrists as he leans into me, “we’re going to make it go away.”
I inhale a shaky breath and allow him to pull my coat off. “You can’t just say you’re going to do that and it does. It’s not that easy.”
He encloses me in his powerful arms, burying his face in my hair, nuzzling my neck, and his smell, that deliciously wonderful smell, surrounds me. “I didn’t say it would be easy.” His hand caresses up my waist and he tugs my blouse free of my skirt. “Just that we’d deal with it together.”
His palms slip under the silk, finding my bare flesh, and his touch is like liquid fire in my veins. Sensations roll through me and collide with emotions. I squeeze my eyes shut to hide what I feel, as if Chris can see my face, but he can’t, and somehow I know this is intentional on his part. The way he instinctively knows what I need is both perfection and a trap at the same time. It would be so very easy to tell him what’s happening to me, and so very shortsighted and selfish. I’d feel better now, but it would steal his freedom to be free with me, and eventually turn me into an obligation.
With another deep breath, I face Chris, and I do what I would have done sooner, had I been thinking straight. I stop attempting the losing strategy of hiding from the man I want to get lost in, and I seek the kind of escape I trust only him to give me. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I confess everything I dare. “I don’t know why I’m letting everything from the past few days get to me. I’m thinking too much.”
“You’re thinking too much,” he finally repeats, and it’s not a question. It’s doubt, and doubt, like a secret, is poison. “I know you. You aren’t saying something, and I want more than that from you.”
“I know you’re worried and trying to protect me, Chris. It’s who you are and I love you for that, but please don’t try to get in my head right now, when I’m trying to get out of it. I’m on overload, and the only ‘more’ I can take is the kind of ‘more’ only you can give me. That place you take me that leaves no room for anything but you. I need that. I need you.”
“And yet you tried to run from the elevator to escape me.”
“Not you, Chris. From me. I’m all over the place. I’m worried about tomorrow. I’m worried about Ella and Amanda and—” I press my hands to his face. “Fuck me, Chris! I need you to fuck me.”
His answer is silence, and I can feel the deep, slow way he’s breathing, the calm calculation I sense in him that has me counting torturous seconds. He leans back, his eyes locking with mine. “It won’t work.”
“Why not?” I ask.
His voice is sandpaper rough. “It would be so damn easy for me to tie you to the bed and fuck you every which way, but it wouldn’t distract me from asking questions, like you think it would. It’ll become the tool I use to get the answers you don’t want to give me.”
“Even if that’s not what I want?”
“I won’t be able to help myself. Because the last time I saw this look in your eyes, Michael put it there.” Abruptly, he sets me away from him. “But I won’t force you to tell me what’s wrong, no matter how insane it’s making me right now. That would make me no better than he was to you. But be clear, Sara: If you want me to trust you and show you everything, you have to be willing to trust me that much, too.”
He walks out of the bedroom, leaving me staring after him.
Fourteen
I stare at the doorway Chris has just exited, stunned. He knows I’m still affected by Michael. I didn’t know; how did he? Or maybe I did, but I was in denial—and that’s a mistake Chris doesn’t make. He accepts his scars. More than once he’s told me that the way Mark lives is dangerous, convincing himself that extreme control over everything and everyone around him somehow wipes out his past. Chris called it a crash waiting to happen.
And he’s right. I see Mark unraveling, pieces of him falling, cracking like glass on the ground he thinks is solid under his feet, but even that’s unsteady. Perhaps Mark’s ability to live in a façade of rightness is what draws me to him, since I’m also guilty of that, too. That’s how I survived Michael, and I’ve never envied
Chris’s ability to know himself as much as I do right now.
Kicking off my shoes, I rush to the bathroom and undress, anxious to explain everything, so he doesn’t believe tonight was about a lack of trust on my part. I consider showing up in Chris’s studio naked, exposed in every way, to make a statement. But his mood is a swiftly changing vehicle, and I have to drive the appropriate speed. I decide to err on the side of caution, slipping on a long, pink silk robe.
With bare feet and anxious steps I rush through the apartment, and down the long hallway. The studio doorway is cracked open but the lights are out, and there’s silence where Chris usually favors music. I don’t know what this means, but I rethink playing this cautiously. That’s what got me into trouble in the first place. It’s all or nothing with Chris. It always has been. I need to make that statement, to declare to him that I am not holding back.
I drop the robe and step inside the studio. Chris stands in the center, his feet bare, his shirt off, his inked skin and defined chest deliciously male.
He is shrouded in shadows, his features dusted with starlight, his blond hair a wild, spiky, finger-tousled mess, and I can almost see him running his fingers through it in frustration. Because of me. I’ve twisted him into knots, when I was trying to protect him. I wait for him to act or speak but he does nothing, and I slowly become aware of what sits next to him: the painting of me naked, sitting on this floor, my hands and feet bound. It is a sign that he’d expected me to follow him and, no doubt, a warning and a promise of what he has planned.
His gaze rakes over my body, taking a leisurely stroll over every part of me, before lifting to my face. “I see you came dressed for the occasion. Come here.”
I don’t hesitate. I never do when Chris’s dominant side is in control. My feet travel the floor quickly; I want him to know that I’m eager. And I am. The sooner I’m touching him and he’s touching me, the sooner I can breathe again.
“Stop,” he orders when I reach the center of the room.
I halt and he closes the distance between us, all long-legged grace and confident man. My man, whom I don’t want to lose. He halts in front of me and I can smell the earthy, wonderful scent of him that has come to mean dominance, power, and home.
His green eyes meet mine in challenge. “Showing up naked is an invitation to get fucked, Sara.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “Please.”
“Do you remember what I said the painting means to me?”
“You said it’s about trust.”
“That’s right. I also told you that if I fuck you tonight, I’ll make you tell me why you just tried to run from me.”
“I know.”
“I changed my mind, though. You want to be fucked, I’ll fuck you. But I don’t want what you don’t give me freely.”
“Everything, Chris. I give you all that I am, and I give it freely.”
“And yet there’s fear in your eyes, and you ran rather than telling me why. Do you know how crazy that’s making me, or what I’m imagining the cause might be?”
“I didn’t mean to make you worry.” I hug myself so I won’t reach for him. I desperately want to touch him, but I sense the edge in him, the way he needs control right now. I understand it. I’ve lived it, and he gives me the freedom to let it go. And that’s what I have to do now. Just let go and tell him.
“Before Ricco showed up, I had a panic attack in the restaurant. I don’t know why it happened. I hid in the bathroom and pulled myself together. I haven’t been myself since Ava attacked me. I think you know that.”
“And you couldn’t just tell me this? You ran, Sara.”
“No, I didn’t. That’s what you’re not getting—or I’m not getting across. I was trying to make sure you don’t run.”
“Baby, I’m not running. I never have.”
“But you just tried to get me to, over and over. It’s the same thing, Chris. You’re finally letting me into those darker places you go. I finally feel like I could win over the whip, but I see the moments when you fear my seeing the part of you it controls. I don’t want you to shut me out because you think I’m like Amber.”
He drags me to him. “You are not Amber. You will never be like her.”
My fingers wrap his wrist. “I know you want to protect me, and I love you for that more than you know.”
“Yet too easily, you found a reason to shut me out tonight. Trust isn’t a fair-weather friend. It’s about a willingness to be vulnerable and exposed.”
“And I am willing to do that. That’s why I’m here now.”
He searches my face, and I don’t know what he looks for, what he needs, or what he finds. He releases me abruptly. “Hold out your hands and lace your fingers together.”
Heat rushes through me with the certainty that I’m about to fully understand the painting he’s created of me. This is him sending me a message. He’s not holding back. My confession, as incomplete as it is, has changed nothing. I offer him my arms, aware as I haven’t been in the past few minutes of my naked body, my breasts pressed together.
Chris reaches into his back pocket and produces a roll of art tape, using it to wrap my wrists. Task complete, he bends my elbows and presses my wrists to my chest, his fingers covering the bindings. He has become dark Chris, the dominant Master who never shows emotion; the Chris who arouses me in ways I would never believe a man could.
“Sit down,” he orders, and the way he manages such force with what is no more than a whisper stirs heat low in my body.
My throat is dry and my heart beats so loudly I am certain Chris can hear. I squat and he follows me down, steadying me so I don’t fall without the use of my hands. “All the way,” he murmurs, gently nudging me until my bare backside is on the floor.
He angles my knees up toward my chest, with my feet out enough to stabilize my body. His long lashes lower, half-moons on his cheeks, and I sense him struggling with what has passed between us. He knows I need to see he won’t hold back, but this isn’t just for me. I think he really needs this, too, for me to show him, not tell him, how much I trust him.
Chris tapes my ankles and then throws the roll over his shoulder. My nerve endings are so alive, so on edge that the roll hits the ground like a thundering drum that seems to radiate through the room, through my body. His hands come down on my knees and the touch sweeps over me, awakening nerve endings in the most intimate and unforgiving of places. I feel this man everywhere, I want him everywhere. But as if he knows what I feel, and he means to deny me, he withdraws. I shiver with a sudden cold certain to linger. He will torment me, make me wait for him. Make me beg.
He stands up, towering over me, and I stare up at him, trying to read him, the anticipation of what comes next tingling through me. And it’s supposed to. I see that in his eyes, and I am reminded of his words when I’d first seen the painting. It’s about trust. The kind of trust I want from you and have no right to ask for. He’s going to push me. He’s going to take me somewhere uncomfortable. Somewhere I might not want to go, but I will. With Chris, I will.
He walks behind me and then shows me a red silk cloth, proof that my assumptions are right. He means to take trust to a whole new level. “Have you ever been blindfolded?”
“No.”
“Any objections?” he asks.
Nerves dance frantically in my stomach and my nipples tighten to the point of pain. “Yes. I mean, no. No objections.”
He lowers his head, his warm breath shimmering on my cheek. “I could do anything to you right now, and you couldn’t stop me.”
“I don’t want to stop you.”
“Anything, Sara,” he emphasizes.
“I trust you, Chris,” I say, my voice laced with a breathless quality that he’s too observant not to notice. He knows how he affects me and that is part of his power.
“Lean on your elbows,” he orders.
I ease forward and he gently presses his cheek to mine as he says, “I’m not going to spank you.” He frees me and I siz
zle with the certainty that this wasn’t meant to comfort me. It was meant to make me wonder what he is going to do to me. He’s testing me, something I’d hoped we were beyond, but I’ve put us right back there again. Perhaps we never left. Actually, until the day he has to choose me over the whip, we won’t leave.
Leaning forward, I rest my weight on my elbows, the angle lifting my backside in the air. If this isn’t exposed and vulnerable, I don’t know what is. He doesn’t touch me but I feel the heat of his stare, and I hear the rustle of his pants as he rises and the pad of his bare feet on the floor as he crosses the room. With the absence of sight and music, my nerve endings prickle with every sound. I hear Chris’s footsteps as he nears again but still I gasp when he is suddenly beside me, his arm wrapping my waist. Heat rushes through me with the touch and he lifts my body, lowering my elbows onto a cushioned pad, then scooting it beneath the rest of my body.
It is this part of Chris that really gets to me. The man who is a contradiction to himself, who can spank me, but worries over my tiniest discomfort. The man who can order me around, but asks how I feel about everything. I don’t know how he achieves such a delicate balance, but it’s why I can not only be bound, naked, and blindfolded, but do so fearlessly. Unbidden, emotions well inside me. During the end of my time with Michael, just the idea of him touching me had made me recoil. Yet this is where I am with Chris—and that’s one of the many things I have to tell him before this night is over.
There’s a flickering sound that I try to identify but can’t. I’m aware of Chris behind me, the random sounds of him moving about, and then the shocking sensation of some kind of liquid squirting onto my back. I gasp with the cold, the wetness, and then sigh with the relief of Chris’s hands dragging it over my skin. Oil. I have no idea where this is going or what he plans, nor can I form real ideas when he’s touching me, caressing up and down my sides, then over my backside. Over and over he repeats the sensual motion. Again and again. Slowly, my muscles ease, tension sliding away and I relax into the sensations he’s creating, my nipples throbbing, sex clenching with the need to feel him inside me.